Fate/Zero 06: Reasons to buy the Blue-Ray box….T_T

Well the excitement from last week has died down with this week’s slightly slowly paced episode with a few actions scenes but it is all for the greater good…. But sadly this episode had to have a few scenes censored due to the real graphic nature of the images….

Caster is depressed from the censorship...T_T

The episode starts of with Irisviel and Saber taking a drive towards the Einzbern Castle in Fuyuki along a winding mountainous route. You would have expected that with such noble family as the Einzberns that their heir would be ferried around in a limo but Irisviel goes against that thought and drives herself around.

Let me show you my Takumi impression...

But judging from her driving, to Saber’s dismay, Irisviel is not that good a driver swerving around like a drunk driver, making Saber very worried. It seems that the car that they are driving is one of the gifts that Kiritsugu gave to her and it is a gem of an automobile, one of the classics. Even though the brand logo is missing from it, it is very obvious what it is, the classic gull wing doors and shape of its chassis, all meticulously described in the novel, the classic Mercedes Benz SLS.

So Obvious...

As they are driving up the hill, Saber detects a presence in front of them and asks Irisviel to stop immediately before ordering her to take cover, it seems that she has detected a Servant who is obstructing their way.Getting out of the car to confront the Servant, it seems that Caster is obstructing them.

Caster upon seeing Saber, immediately bows before her, praising her as his Holy Maiden. Saber is confused with his behaviour as she does not recognize him as any of her servants from Camelot, with her replying Irisviel’s question confirming that confusion.Hearing that reply from Saber, Caster goes into shock before spouting some crazy lines while revealing his true name, that of the Baron Gilles de Rais, to them and revealing who he thought Saber was, the Jeanna d’Arc that he adored in his previous life.

Caster throws a few more questions which Saber denies thoroughly, causing him to fly into a madness induced rage, cursing God for causing his beloved Jeanne to lose her memories. He even jumps to a conclusion that the Grail is already in his hands as it has already granted his wish of resurrecting Jeanne.

Hearing this audacity from Caster, Saber gets pissed off and fires a warning burst of air at Caster to stop his insane ramblings.

Seeing that he cannot get Saber to understand him, Caster departs from the area, but not before stating that he has something to do to ‘release her soul from God’s grasp’.

It seems that Assassin was observing this short encounter, who immediately decides to follow him.

The scene then jumps to Caster’s hideout with Ryuunosuke performing some experiments on people they have captured. Caster appears soon after and interrupts him before rambling on on his plan to save his beloved Jeanne d’Arc, hinting on the carnage and atrocities to come. This scene is heavily censored, with many parts in which they are just focusing on a blank pillar. They had to do it for obvious reasons as this scene really is too gory to be show on air and on streaming. For those who are interested, Ryuunosuke was in the midst of playing with a girl’s intestines, trying to use her as a human pipe organ before Caster appeared and crushed her head with his hand, which explains the blood on him later in the scene.

You will see this alot...>.<

It then jumps to the Kayneth/Lancer hotel suite where Kayneth is in the midst of berating Lancer for his failure of not defeating Saber when he had the chance and him making Kayneth waste a valuable Command Seal. Lancer tries to defend himself but Kayneth does not want to hear his excuses or promises.

But before Kayneth could berate Lancer further, they get interrupted by a female voice who jumps to Lancer’s defense in the argument. The lady is Kayneth’s fiance, Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, who, after stopping Kayneth from scolding Lancer, immediately starts to scold Kayneth instead. She also reveals that they have a special contract with Lancer, Kayneth has the Command Seals but Sola-Ui is the one providing the prana to support him in the current material plane.

Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri

As she continues to mock Kayneth on his cowardice, Lancer interrupts as he is unable to endure hearing his Master getting insulted to that extent. With that line from Lancer, Sola, who at that point was stoic and serious, immediately changed to being remorseful and apologized for her rudeness. This funny behaviour was observed by Kayneth who after seeing that short exchanged, focused on the mole on Lancer’s face as he is starting to suspect that his beloved fiance had fallen under Lancer’s curse, mainly due to her erratic behaviour. This is actually true and heralds the start of Lancer’s tragedy.

Before they could discuss things further, the fire alarm goes off. It seems that there was a small fire on the floors below them. Kayneth deduces that this small act of arson is a prelude to an attack from Saber’s Master and boasts about how well protected and fortified his is in his mini altier but little did he know how unconventional his opponent is.

This was all part of Kiritsugu’s plan, with him hypnotizing the Hotel employee who was performing the headcount before he retreated to a safe distance to execute his plan.

"These are not the droids you are looking for..."

To fight a mage, you have to either be much stronger than them or attack, in mage terms, unconventionally and Kiritsugu is an expert on the latter. With Maiya on overwatch, Kiritsugu executes his plan, literally blowing up the hotel completely.

BOOM!

Satisfied with the destruction he just did and with Maiya confirming that no one left the building Kiritsugu orders Maiya to retreat but is met with some static on her end. Jumping to Maiya, it seems that she is taking cover from a unexpected enemy, Kotomine Kirei.

They do have a short battle in which Kirie shows how good is he with the Black Keys, aka Ceil from Tsukihime, before Maiya escapes with the help from a smoke grenade, courtesy of Kiritsugu.

After she leaves, Assassin appears before Kirei to report on Caster.

Jumping to the Church, Assassin reveals to Kirei, Risei and Tokiomi on Caster’s misdeeds. Tokiomi feels very insulted as that behaviour is very unbecoming of a magus who is sworn to secrecy regarding magecraft, and Caster runs the risk of blowing their cover. After a short discussion, Risei proposed a plan to unite the other Masters to help remove Caster and is master, which would be explained in the next episode.

Finally the episode ends with Kotomine bumping into Gilgamesh after the meeting, who has a long discussion with Kirei regarding his wishes and beliefs. He proceeds to sow some seeds of doubt and corruption in Kirei’s pure soul before leaving him to his thoughts. This short meeting is one of the few encounters on Kirei’s fall into darkness and is one of the most interesting encounters throughout the series with more to come.

Overall this episode was everything I had hoped for with only one disappointment. This episode heralds the start of the novel’s volume two arc, setting the pace for an explosive and exciting end to this first season if I am predicting correctly.On the animation side, ufotable stuns again with their superb work on the hotel explosion scene. The big censorship was a bummer as I was really waiting for the torture scene but they really had no choice due to the broadcast medium, giving even more reasons to get the Blue-Ray with the deleted/extra scenes. The pace will surely pick up from the next episode and will not let off till the end of the season I can assure you, so stay tuned for more awesome-ness next week onwards.

Alright, I decided that I must get this question answered: Will I be totally or majorly lost if I were to watch Fate/Zero without having watching Fate/stay night? I’m tempted to give F/Z a try, but I really don’t have the motivation to watch all 20-something episodes of F/sn first…

well some parts you may be confused….mainly on the terms used…story wise there is nothing much that would confuse you…bt if u watched Fate/Zero first, following it by Fate/Stay, u would hv spoilt yourself terribly and you would feel that Fate/Stay is pathetic compared to Zero… I would highly encourage you to watch Fate/Stay first b4 watching Zero so you would appreciate it more….bt over all this series is terrific if u like magic and some mythology combined into one…. juz watch it and you wont regret…but juz a heads up…the start of Fate/Stay may be slow..bt the latter eps are really worth it…^^

xexexe

November 8, 2011 at 4:21 am

“the start of Fate/Stay may be slow.”

You said it! I give any anime series 2 episodes to impress me, and if it fails, I move on lol. I remember when F/sn first came out, all of my friends were head over heels for its supposed awesomeness, but I just never grew any fondness for it😡

I’ll watch the 1st episode of F/Z, and if I feel very lost, then I’ll consider watching F/sn first, but otherwise, I don’t feel motivated enough to watch F/sn lol

archyver

November 8, 2011 at 9:48 am

Hahaha… sadly thats the speed that Fate/Stay has at the start, so maybe if u think it is slow..you can juz turbo the first 8 eps or so through till it gets exciting….anyway Fate/Zero explains itself quite a bit so it wont be that confusing but some of the characters will be lost on you if you hvnt watched Fate/Stay… So for a fuller experience it is better to watch Fate/Stay first, followed by the Fate/Unlimited Blade Works movie then Fate/Zero…..oh and if you have any questions regarding the series..you can ask me haha^^